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FROM A DISTANCE: A MIGRANT’S ASPIRATIONS FOR THE COMING POLLS

by ENGR. RAFAEL T. DAVID, ME, CE, MBA

Paper presented at the forum titled
Overseas Filipinos and the 2004 Elections
19 March 2004 – Manila Pavilion
Organized by the OFW Journalism Consortium and the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung

REPUBLIC Act 9189 or better known as the Overseas Absentee Voting Act (OAVA) is the law that made OFWs a complete Filipino again as it restored our right of suffrage as guaranteed in our Constitution. For the first time, OFWs liked me are again given a the right to select and elect officials who will run the affairs of the government. We, OFWs are pinning our high hopes and aspirations that this restored right to vote would mean a big change in the our system of government and give us the unique identity as a sector of our society to be reckoned with.

We are being called the modern heroes of our time or the “Bagong Bayani” by the people who perceived OFWs as the equalizer in the government’s economic battle. Whether the government is sincere in calling us that we do not know or it is just a lip service to please us and to encourage us to remit more dollars to float the country’s sinking economy. For us, we consider ourselves as one of the neglected sectors of our society until the time that this much ballyhooed OAVA was enacted into law. The passing of this law is a land mark legislation but what have they done to it. The law was implemented haphazardly making voter’s registration and voting complicated. Voters registration was short and limited. Information dissemination was lacking that OFWs are still ignorant of the law and its implementing rules.

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Voters from the far flung areas like ours have to travel 800 + kms. round trip just to vote. You have to be absent from work just to register, that means lost salary and decreased vacation days. Traveling either by car or by plane is also expensive and could reach up to US$ 200. That’s why OFW registrants were turned-off and in KSA alone hundreds of thousands of OFWs were disenfranchised. There are approximately 900,000 documented and undocumented OFWs KSA. Around 93,000 found time to register or only about 10% of the total probable voters. When translated into warm body voters; we will be lucky if we could garner 70 % percent and getting that much is already a big feat! Reasons for these are; the bad experience they had during the registration, the negative perception of OFWs towards the election process and the quality of candidates to choose from. Sorry to say but if I may be blunt, COMELEC and DFA are ill prepared in terms of financial and logistical resources to successfully conduct this election exercise.

But why are we participating in this election in spite of this handicap? What are our hopes and aspirations? What is it for us? There are so many questions in our mind but still we are willing to gamble just to have our concerns and aspirations heard. Sabi nga sa TFC ABS-CBN TV ads: Ang iboboto ko ay ang kayang pangalagaan ang kapakanan ng mga OFW tulad ng asawa ko.” Maybe the housewife who uttered those words is right. We, OFWs are looking for that person who will protect the rights and looked after the welfare of OFWs liked me. Who among the first presidentiables has that platform of government or heart for the OFWs. What we need is a government that will protect and not exploit us. A government that can pave the way to good labor integration when we lost our jobs abroad or opt to go home for good. A government that can negotiate in equal footing with the host country and a government that would looked at us as Filipino and not just the source of billions of dollar of remittance or a saleable dollar earning commodity. There are instances that our government shrinks from its responsibility to fight for the right of OFWs. The attitude of “Let it be”, because they don’t like to offend the host country. If the labor laws of the host country or of the Philippines are violated, it is incumbent upon our government to help fight these violations. If our OFWs are given the short end of the stick while other nationals are favored, the Philippine government should talk it out in the highest level this transgression. A good example is in KSA where Saudi Aramco is giving pension benefits to Indians and Pakistans and made integral part of their contract. OFWs when they retire in Saudi Aramco are just given the service award without the pension package. It is ironic that Saudi Aramco has a business here in the Philippines (Petron) yet we are letting this “short changing pass” with out question. We have thousand of OFWs who have already retired and soon to be retired. This might be a big help to them.

OAVA will mean nothing to OFWs if our concerns as presented above are not heard or addressed by those who will be elected to run our government. I may not be peaking for the whole OFWs around the world but as a Community Leader who is in the thick and thin of OFWs problems for the last 22 years; I can say that this coming polls is an acid test for us because this will give recognition to OFWs as a sector of our society that can make or break any aspirant to the highest position in the government.

This coming election should not fail us because the future of our children and the country’s economic soundness depends on it.